Fireflies
by Red River
Summary: Come help me for a sec, okay, Sasuke? Help me catch a firefly. One-shot, Sasuke x Naruto, light. Mild AU.


Disclaimer: The words are mine, the characters are not.

A/N: A one-shot inspired by a picture, as usual. Takes place in the same vague alternate universe as _Enough_, although honestly there's nothing in this story that makes it an AU. The pairing is light, as usual, and you're welcome to read this as deep friendship if you prefer, although it would be pretty deep. Just an image of a happier time, or a different one, and a wish everyone should be able to make.

Again Neji makes an appearance. I have a soft spot for him, I guess.

Warnings: None.

Pairing: Sasuke x Naruto, light.

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Another stolen midnight.

The stars had caught up to the sky, in their endless and futile pursuit of the sun—the sun that had set a long time ago, leaving nothing but the warmth of the earth and the summer sweet smell of growing things as proof of its handprint on the world. The stars had caught up and they were making up for lost time, for the daylight hours when they had no chance to shine. The sky was their tapestry and every one was a tiny mirror in full glitter, so ripe and clear they looked as though they might all rain down at once, knocked loose from the darkness by a sigh or a laugh or a smile on the curve of the earth below.

Sasuke watched them and kept his breath soft, in his place on the side of a hill beneath the open sky, seated with his arms slung loose around his legs to keep the warmth in or to keep himself still. It didn't matter very much which it was. Sasuke watched them and listened to the laughter echoing up to him from companions in the open field below, companions he had come with but soon lost track of in favor of the silence, and the stars.

The darkness was warm around him, a jacket he didn't need—so thick in the wind that the air, when he breathed, seemed to hold its own color, to leave that color behind as it left his lungs. Sasuke watched the stars and felt the darkness in his lungs and wondered if anything was better than this kind of silence, in this kind of a place.

"Sasuke!"

Two warm hands took the place of darkness on his shoulders, and Sasuke looked up into blue eyes that didn't need the stars to make them bright, or the darkness to incubate the sincerity of that smile. Naruto looked at him with a face that was upside down, his hands beating a restless rhythm onto the shoulders of his best friend's T-shirt.

"Whatcha doing, Sasuke?"

"Watching the stars," Sasuke said, his eyes lifting back to a sky that shared their color. "Waiting for the sky to fall."

"Oh." The wrinkles on Naruto's forehead said he didn't understand. His smile a moment later said he didn't care. "Hey, come on. Come help me for a sec, okay?"

"Help you with what?" Sasuke asked, though the tugging of ten restless fingers at his shirt had already pushed him up to his feet. Naruto grinned, darkness and starlight warring with his smile.

"Catching fireflies. They're all over the place, but I can't get 'em. Come on, come on—there were lots over here."

Naruto had his hand. Naruto always seemed to have his hand. Naruto had his hand and the tall summer grasses were parting before them, bowing beneath one stray and one steady set of footsteps as Naruto led him away from the distant laughter, away from the stars, to the top of the hill where the lights of the city not so far away shone across the surface of the world, an imperfect mirror to the sky stretched taut above them. The world and the sky as two sets of mirrors, two sets of lights poised in opposition, but Naruto's eyes were on a different kind of light, and Sasuke's eyes were on him, and on the hands that bridged the gap between them.

"See! There's one now—"

Naruto let go of his hand and lunged after the tiny glow, his eyes and his smile fierce with excitement. Sasuke watched him and the darkness threaded back between his fingers, brushing away the warmth that his companion had left there, until Naruto turned to look back at him, his first target already lost to the obscurity of the night.

"C'mon, Sasuke. You, too. You've gotta catch one!"

Sasuke nodded but didn't move. He didn't move for a long time, except for his eyes, which stayed on Naruto as the other boy ran one way and then the other, his hands outstretched for the fireflies that were just beyond his reach. He didn't move until a sudden glow flared up just at his periphery, and he turned to catch the firefly in one hand, pale fingers closing around the insect with a silence as firm as the night's.

Naruto stopped running at once, turning to stare at the hand that was pulsing with the light of the firefly inside. Then his gaze lifted to meet Sasuke's, just a little put out, those shadow-blue eyes bearing the same emotion as his cheeks puffed out in pout.

"No fair. How'd you do that without even trying, Sasuke?"

Sasuke turned his hand over and pulled it in, considering the red outlines of his curled fingers. "You're running around too much. They won't come near you if you're moving. Just wait for them."

"Just wait, just wait. That's boring," Naruto grumbled. Sasuke extended his hand.

"You want this one?"

"No way!" Naruto crossed his arms, offering the other boy a firm shake of his head. "I'm going to catch my own. Just watch." Then his face cleared, and he reached out to take Sasuke's hand, his thumb prying back the cup of his companion's fingers. "Make a wish, and then you've gotta let it go, okay? Otherwise it'll die."

Sasuke blinked. "Make a wish?"

Naruto laughed. "Yeah. You make wishes on fireflies. Didn't you know that?"

He didn't. It didn't matter. His hand was already open, and the insect was gone, nothing but a yellow pinprick disappearing against the background of the stars. Naruto sent him a sideways look.

"Did you make a wish?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, feeling the faint reverberation of Naruto's pulse through their joined hands. Naruto frowned at him.

"Liar. What's the point of catching fireflies if you don't make a wish, huh?"

Sasuke didn't know for sure. He thought maybe the answer was the warmth of Naruto's hand on his, and the spark in those blue eyes that had nothing to do with the stars.

He thought that, but he was wrong. He knew he was wrong a moment later when a tiny yellow globe suddenly lit right between their faces, and Naruto yelped with excitement as both hands clapped around the firefly, trapping the bug in the net of his fingers. He was wrong because this was the point of catching fireflies: the light in Naruto's eyes as he stared at his glowing hands, and the smile of simple pleasure that was so much warmer than the darkness, so much warmer than the silence he had admired before.

"Sasuke! Look, look! I got one!" Naruto cracked his hands open just enough to peer inside, and then he laughed, the crevice painting a stripe of light across his face. "It's a big one, too. Hey, firefly. I caught ya! Now you've got to make my wish come true."

Sasuke was too busy watching Naruto to look down at the firefly. So busy that he didn't notice Naruto's movement until the other boy had already grabbed his hand, two bright blue eyes staring up into his as Naruto wrapped their hands together around the firefly.

"You can make a wish on mine, Sasuke. Since you forgot to with yours."

Sasuke wondered if fireflies were warm when they glowed, or if the warmth on his hand came from something else. "What about your wish?"

"He can carry mine, too," Naruto promised, nodding as his smile chased the shadows from his face. "He's big enough. Definitely. So make a wish, okay?"

Naruto's hand tightened around the firefly and around Sasuke's, and he closed his eyes. Sasuke didn't. He kept his eyes on Naruto's face, on the lines of concentration that gave way to a summer smile as Naruto threw back his hands, on the blue eyes that laughed along with his voice as the firefly followed Sasuke's into the darkness, just one more star in an endless sky. Just one more star that had lost Sasuke's interest.

"Hey, hey, Sasuke. What'd you wish for?" Naruto asked, squeezing their joined hands as his eyes fell back from the sky. Sasuke felt a smile resting at the corners of his mouth.

"I can't tell you. Otherwise it won't come true."

Or it already had.

Naruto wrinkled his nose. "Then I won't tell you either. Take that!" But his indignation was gone in an instant, giving way to that same familiar smile, the smile Sasuke wondered if he would ever get tired of seeing. "C'mon—let's go find the others. I wonder if Neji caught a firefly yet!" Naruto laughed to himself. "Maybe not. He's not so cool with bugs."

Sasuke rolled his eyes but said nothing. He said nothing as Naruto turned and raced down the hill, dragging him along by the hand that was still knitted to his, the hand that Sasuke so often found himself following. He said nothing because it didn't matter much to him whether Neji had caught a firefly or not. All that mattered was the warmth in his hand—the lingering brush of the firefly and the weight of a wish, and the summer sweet smell of the grass beneath their feet as midnight wove one more star into the sky. All that mattered was the smile Naruto cast over his shoulder and the smile he gave back, and the wish he was making in his mind now—the wish for one more stolen midnight, just like this.


End file.
